Finally

I presumed I’d be feeling slightly sadder than I am at the moment. Last night was very possibly (hopefully) our last night performing on the Baltic ships after coming here for over seven years. Instead I can’t wait to leave. This contract has dragged so badly. It doesn’t help that the things that used to make this work more fun, namely drinking, are not as enjoyable now that I’m older. As we’ve had to partake in farewell drinks with the various people we’ve met here over the years, there have been way too many instances of waking up at 4pm with a hangover that even four years ago wouldn’t have existed. On top of the self-inflicted illness, there has also been the various colds and flus of ship life. Only more than normal. Out of the fifty or so days on-board I think I’ve been feeling well for only about ten of them.

I wrote about the reason for leaving the boats in the previous post. Finally the artist booking department have responded to all the complaints from the cruise managers, who are understandably unhappy with the news that we are not coming back. It turns out that they still don’t want to give us even a small rise and so personally I’ve had enough. The idea of never coming back here is a welcome one.

There’s just one more night to get through first though. A free cruise back to Helsinki from Stockholm. Usually these are quite rare and so the opportunity to be a passenger for a night is a cause for celebration. However, the last time I drank a lot before a flight home the alcohol shits kicked in as the plane was taxiing. Disaster was averted but only narrowly. The crew were also annoyed at having to keep wheeling the food trolley out of the way to let me by several times. The whole thing was quite embarrassing. Being struck down with toilet troubles during flight has been a nightmare of mine since I witnessed a woman stand up during take-off on an EasyJet flight to Nice. When robustly instructed to sit down she had to shout “But I have diahorea!” to the entire plane. To which the steward replied “Just go!” A few broken rules are clearly better than a shit soaked passenger.

Not drinking much tonight means it’s not going to be the epic send-off I was hoping for. What makes it worse is that as the clock ticks past midnight it’s officially my 33rd birthday. I suppose it’s quite fitting that the celebrations are sort of ruined as for the last few years my birthday has always seemed to fall on a travel day. The plan is to maybe go to one of the restaurants on-board though which means no more mess food. Ever. That’s a pretty good gift. Although I’ve just heard it’s burger buffet today. Probably the only enjoyable staff food served on this ship so it’s typical i’m going to miss it. I’m sure I can manage a few lenkeros to help lift my mood without too much of an effect on tomorrow.  

Even though I’ve known for a while that I probably wouldn’t be coming back to this region for work anymore, I did think there was a chance I’d still be visiting here regularly. During the last contract in April I met someone out here and we had been dating for a little while. She was from the Aland Islands, which most people seem not to have heard of. They are situated right in the middle of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland and the only affordable way to get to them is by sailing on the ships I’ve worked here. I’ve been travelling over here quite regularly for non-work reasons but about two weeks into this contract things with her ended and it left me realising that I might not actually visit here again. Maybe that sounds a bit dramatic but that’s the only real sad part about all of this. The ships and the work are shite but the countries are mainly great. It’s just that I’ve been here so many times that I can’t imagine I’d want to come for a holiday anytime soon.

Knowing this could be the last time over here gave me a bit of a push over the last couple of weeks to go out more and see a couple of things I’d missed over the years. Finally I saw the Vasa ship and the Cave church that I mentioned previously so there has been some positives to this otherwise pretty depressing contract. But surely the biggest positive of all is knowing that I don’t have to get on the stage here again and play Que Sera to a dancefloor full of waltz lovers and children. Now it’s time for a shower, a long drink, some food and maybe a visit to the music bar to watch the new band suffer through the first three sets. That’ll cheer me up.

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